REAGAN ASSERTS BLAME IS HIS IN MARINE SECURITY FAILURE
Posted on 10/17/2015 7:16:28 AM PDT by GonzoII
Editor's Note Appended
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27— President Reagan said today that he accepted full blame for the lack of security measures that permitted the terrorist bombing of the Marine headquarters in Beirut. He said he does not believe any of the Marine commanders ought to be punished.
''If there is to be blame,'' Mr. Reagan said, ''it properly rests here in this office and with this President. I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good.''
While acknowledging that the marines were ill-prepared to deal with the Oct. 23 terrorist truck bombing that took 241 lives, the President said their commanders ''have already suffered quite enough.'' Report's Conclusions Listed
Speaking at a hastily called news conference this morning before leaving for his ranch in California, the President said he had read the report of the special Defense Department commission that has investigated the bombing. That 166-page report, which criticizes the marines' security precautions, has not been made public. But officials who have read the report, or who were involved in its preparation, discussed it today. They said these were among its conclusions:
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Can one man be missed more than The Gipper?
Leadership 101.
Not in these times.
I don’t think there is anyone in the current government that could man up and show any strength at all.
Right after the bombing, he still spoke of the terrorist activities in terms of Cold War/nationalistic/big power dynamics. But within three years his rhetoric began to change and he started to see the Islamofascist threat as unique and quite apart from traditional threats.
“Can one man be missed more than The Gipper?”
Maybe Calvin Coolidge.
Can you imagine 16 years consecutively of
Coolidge then Reagan?
If that happened, we would not need a Donald Trump.
Any time frame for completion of the book?
Did you find out anything important about the lack of response to the bombing?
Gosh.
Remember how nice it was to have a real President?
Now we have fumblebutt.
Ahh, when men were MEN...
And women were glad of it!
The response was the invasion of Grenada two days later.
That sure took care of Hezbollah./s
bttt
President Reagan not only kept us safe, but gave us the confidence that America was safe. More importantly he by the invasion Grenada, he put Communist dictators in the USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua, China and North Korea that if the dictatorship in Grenada could be destroyed over night by the American military, that all such regimes were in danger. America's Victory in Grenada also delivered a massive sense of relief to all Americans as the not just the threat of Grenada was eliminated, but also the fear of such dictatorships was gone.
President Reagan not only kept us safe, but gave us the confidence that America was safe. More importantly he by the invasion Grenada, he put Communist dictators in the USSR, Cuba, Nicaragua, China and North Korea that if the dictatorship in Grenada could be destroyed over night by the American military, that all such regimes were in danger. America's Victory in Grenada also delivered a massive sense of relief to all Americans as the not just the threat of Grenada was eliminated, but also the fear of such dictatorships was gone.
The reason an honorable leader like Reagan didn’t punish his military officers for the Beirut disaster is that the weak security at 24th MAU’s compound at Beirut International Airport was dictated by the Reagan Administration over the vehement objections of Marine officers within and outside the chain of command. Reginald Bartholomew, our ambassador and de facto POTUS on the ground, deserves as much blame for the October 23 slaughter of our Marines, sailors and soldiers as any of the Iranian, Syrian or Lebanese plotters who accomplished the actual deeds. It was civilian leadership which directed the rapid mission creep from “peacekeeping” to active participation in support of the Gemayel government - and which simultaneously overruled all USMC measures to strengthen force protection in light of our changed mission. When Ambassador Bartholomew overruled 24th MAU commander Colonel Tim Geraghty’s plan to evacuate all combat non-essentials to our Navy ships offshore, the die was cast. We were hung out to dry.
Those were the days. Patriotic God-fearing responsible adults were in charge.
No. I visit the Reagan Library again in Jan. Currently I’m at his SAG years.
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